In December 1958, Eleanor Roosevelt trashed newly re-elected senator and presidential candidate John Kennedy in an interview for his perceived lack of political independence, as his powerful father, Joseph Kennedy, was spending a fortune on his campaign.

But Roosevelt’s admonishment came with a whiff of hypocrisy. The reason for the exorbitant spending was that campaigning had changed and spending on television advertising was now a necessity. This change had come about due to the recent showbizification of politics, a phenomenon first largely embraced by her husband, four-term Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“Showbiz Politics” delves into the history of the interdependence between Washington and Hollywood. While it’s often thought of as a primarily liberal connection, author Kathryn Cramer Brownell shows that it began with a Republican, was first truly embraced by a Democrat and has been used to great advantage by both parties, with ever-alternating dominance, over the past 80 years.

The entertainment industry made its first significant inroads into politics during the 1928 presidential race, when Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM (“Mayer” is the second “M”), threw his support behind Republican Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.

Mayer worked for years to prove his value to the party, giving speeches on Hoover’s behalf and making a talking film of him, and orchestrating rallies attended by stars such as Al Jolson and Ethel and Lionel Barrymore. After Hoover’s election, Mayer was invited to spend a night at the White House in the Lincoln Bedroom.

His political participation became even more significant during the 1934 race for California governor, which pitted Upton Sinclair, a Socialist journalist and author who promised to end poverty in the state, against Republican incumbent Frank Merriam.

Sinclair wrote a political campaign novel called, “I, Governor of California, And How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future,” which “imagined the success of his proposed policies.” But the esteemed author’s literary excellence was no match for the tool used by Mayer — the magic of film.

Upton SinclairAP

He, along with William Randolph Hearst and Warner Bros.’ Jack Warner, created short films that showed what they saw as the potentially disastrous consequences of Sinclair’s policies, including “powerful images of ‘tramps’ overwhelming California.” The films worked, and Merriam trounced Sinclair.

“The campaign aroused national attention,” writes Brownell, “because it shocked outside observers that an electoral battle could so closely emulate a Hollywood production.”

With the country mired in the Great Depression, Warner wasn’t happy with Hoover. Recognizing an opportunity to eclipse the efforts of his Hollywood rival Mayer — whose loyalties remained with the president — he decided to become a more significant political player by supporting Roosevelt.

In September of that year, Warner organized the Motion Picture Electrical Parade and Sports Pageant, an event he promised would be “the spectacle of spectacles, the show of shows.”

With a major investment of money and studio resources, Warner and comedian Will Rogers introduced a “Western Film Stars Cowboy Circus” and “a celebrity polo match,” before a massive parade that featured “young women dressed as Lady Liberty” and “a float celebrat[ing] the nominee with the sparkling words ‘Hollywood’ and “Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt.’ ”

Roosevelt’s election marked “the beginning of significant changes for the entertainment industry and for the Democratic Party,” changing “the explicit political advocacy of studio executives” from a rarity to an expectation.

The ensuring years saw Warner Bros. work closely with FDR’s administration to promote New Deal programs, and like-minded celebrities such as Humphrey Bogart and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were eager to pitch in where they could.

Democratic rally at Olympic Stadium (L to R) Franklin D.Roosevelt, his son James, Senator William McAdoo, Jim Farley, and Will Rogers.Corbis

In time, the Dems organized star-studded charity events, with politicians they sought to support as guests of honor. In 1934, a “surprise” party was thrown for Roosevelt’s birthday that would also raise funds to cure “infantile paralysis,” with “over 5,000 local communities and businesses” around the country inspired to organize their own, similar events.

The “birthday balls,” as they came to be known, became annual, and the attendance of stars of the day such as Mickey Rooney and Dorothy Lamour made the event a PR victory for the administration and the studios alike.

The media loved the intersection of Hollywood and Washington, and the coverage made everyone look good. In 1939, the president made national news when he told actress Janet Gaynor that she was “cute as a button.” Gaynor then shrewdly used the phrase as the title of her next film.

For the 1940 campaign, “over 200 well-known actors, producers, writers, and studio executives joined ‘Hollywood for Roosevelt,’ a political group ‘representing the entertainment industry.’ ”

Radio broadcasts supporting Roosevelt included performances from the likes of Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Groucho Marx and Bogart. The Democrats ran two massive national broadcasts in the week before the election, and Roosevelt won easily. For his 1941 inauguration gala, Roosevelt had celebrities, including Charlie Chaplin and Irving Berlin, perform at the event for the first time.

Hollywood often seemed to served as a proxy for the Roosevelt administration. The studios released more pointedly political films, such as “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” from Warner Bros., and conservatives accused them of war-mongering and of serving as the administration’s propaganda arm.

In time, this grew into a broader philosophical divide, with Republicans professing the belief that Hollywood should only produce “pure (non-political) entertainment” that promoted only the positive aspects of “Americanism,” and Democrats believing in the power of “message films” that addressed society’s ills.

The connection between the Roosevelt administration and Hollywood grew closer during World War II, as celebrities such as Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Frank Capra and then-liberal Ronald Reagan helped sell war bonds and performed for our troops. The president even spoke at the Academy Awards.

Doing what they do best, the studios also created short films that could be played in theaters to promote the bonds. One, titled “Jennifer Jones Speaks for the ‘Fighting Generation,’ ” was directed by Orson Welles. Another, a film of a rah-rah event called “The All Star Bond Rally,” was hosted by Bob Hope and featured Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Harpo Marx, Betty Grable and Sinatra.

In early 1944, two organizations formed which “articulated political ideologies on the conservative and liberal fringes” — the conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), which had the support of actors and executives such as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Walt Disney; and the liberal Hollywood Free World Association (HFWA). In the years to come, the organizations fought bitterly as proxies for the parties.

Roosevelt’s death in 1945 fractured a fragile Democratic coalition that had united communists and capitalists. With the end of World War II leading us into the Cold War, anti-Communist sympathies grew to the point where Republicans, relying on “arousing the emotions of the public through colorful language and bold indictments,” called for hearings into possible Communist infiltration into the Hollywood studios.

The 1947 hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee showed that despite their claims of wanting politics and entertainment separated, the party “attacked and emulated, then surpassed, the success of the Hollywood Left in advancing the political language of entertainment.”

The hearings destroyed Hollywood’s reputation with Americans. Liberal activists such as Bogart, Olivia de Havilland and Edward G. Robinson faced professional consequences for their previous activism, as “to survive professionally, entertainers had to repent publicly of their activism during the war.”

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and supporters sing ‘I Like Ike’ at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York in 1952.AP Photo/Matty Zimmerman

MPA member Ayn Rand penned a “Screen Guide for Americans” that instructed studios how to adhere to free-market principles, and the industry began a decade of rigid self-censorship, with one executive telling a reporter, “It’s automatic, like shifting gears. I now read scripts through the eyes of the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution].”

The Democratic Party now shunned celebrities, and the 1950s would see very little in the way of liberal celebrity activism.

The Eisenhower era saw Republicans replicate many of the tactics so successfully employed by the Democrats a decade earlier. Popular actor and multiple Oscar nominee Robert Montgomery served as Eisenhower’s coach on how to best communicate to audiences in front of the camera. The White House established its own television studio, and film executives Warner, Richard Zanuck and Samuel Goldwyn employed all their resources to get Ike into office.

Hollywood was so deeply involved with Eisenhower that for his 1956 re-election, the president of Twentieth Century Fox, Spyros Skouras, developed a feature film, in conjunction with various supporters and the president himself, called “Four Full Years.” Narrated by Gary Cooper, it was intended to “pinpoint the contribution that Eisenhower . . . made in bringing about this new era of security and good times” for America.

Joseph Kennedy Sr., here with son John F. Kennedy, founded RKO Studios.Everett Collection

By 1960, Hollywood and Washington were practically branches of each other, making John F. Kennedy the perfect candidate for the times. His father had founded RKO Studios, so he was comfortable around studio production and celebrities. He was the first candidate who needed no convincing or coaching on the stylistic aspects of campaigning.

“While Franklin Roosevelt emerged as the first media-savvy president and Dwight Eisenhower the first ‘prime-time’ television president, John F. Kennedy became the first celebrity president,” Brownell writes.

Mass media was the driving force of the Kennedy campaign, as he sought to “prove to party bosses the electability of an Irish Catholic.” Sinatra recorded a song for Kennedy; a $1 campaign donation got voters their own copy.

The 1960 Democratic convention might as well have been Oscar night, with “over two dozen celebrities, including Sinatra, [Kennedy brother-in-law Peter] Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. appearing on stage in a ‘Parade of Stars’ [to] sing the National Anthem and recite the Pledge of Allegiance” together.

While Hollywood and Washington had been strange bedfellows at times, Kennedy’s victory made their integration complete, establishing the template for everything from Richard Nixon’s appearance on the comedy show “Laugh-In” to Bill Clinton playing the sax for Arsenio Hall.

At Kennedy’s Inauguration Gala, Bette Davis, one of many stars in attendance, gave a speech, declaring her delight at the two victories being celebrated — Kennedy’s and Hollywood’s.
“The world of entertainment,” she said, “has become the sixth estate. There is no better proof than here tonight.”

Top Photo: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (CR) being directed for a speech by actor Robert Montgomery (C) (Getty Images)